Jen Jensen, manager of the Buck Davis Field, recently approached the Creekview Chiefs and presented them with a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) challenge.
The Carbon County Airport is without a control tower, meaning that many of the planes that utilize the airport land without radio assistance. On occasion, the runways must be closed to landing air crafts. Because of this, the respective STEM houses at Creekview were challenged with conducting research in order to develop a way to notify airplanes that the runway would be closed for landings.
The findings and solutions for the Buck Davis Field Airport Stem Project took place at the school on Monday afternoon. The respective houses worked diligently to research and formulate various solutions to the presented issue. Each team spoke in front of the school as well as a panel that consisted of media personnel, county commissioners, members of the school board and more.
The houses demonstrated the different uses and ideas they had constructed into 3D models with duct tape, cardboard, small LED lights and more. Ideas ranged from large railroad crossing-type X’s with red lights, a structured runway surrounded with lighting, sensors on the runway and more.
With each project, there was a recurring theme that all houses seemed to agree upon, which was that the airport has a definite need to construct a control tower in order to communicate with air crafts utilizing the airport.
